//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Detective Rarity Chronicles Pt. I - Bad Blood // by RarestRarity1779 //------------------------------// The trip to the coroner’s office had been a fairly short one, largely due to the fact that Rarity opted to take a taxi. Sidewalk traffic was dreadful to say the least, and she felt that it would be a waste of valuable time to walk all the way from her location at the apartment on the west side, across town, and finally arrive at the coroner’s office right near the center of downtown. When the taxi came to a stop, Rarity and Spike exited, paid the fare, and walked towards the building ahead of them. It was an awfully bleak building, constructed of dreadful off-white stones and in the center of an almost overgrown parking lot, while flanked on the left and right by an aesthetically pleasing police department and fire department, respectively. If the contents of the building didn’t scare ponies, the physical appearance of it should, Rarity thought. Once the two arrived at the front door, Rarity pressed forward but Spike stopped dead in his tracks. She turned to him and teased, “What’s the matter Spike? You aren’t scared are you?” she nudged him playfully. He smiled up at her and persisted, “N-no, not at all!” and then offered a nervous chuckle, “I just… feel like looking over the case notes and getting some fresh air is all.” Rarity knew better, but she wasn’t about to force him into doing something that he didn’t want to do. “Oh Spike,” she chided him gently, “You don’t have to lie to me. You can wait outside if you want. I’ll just be a moment.” She smiled at him and then walked inside of the building. Once he knew that she was out of eye and earshot, Spike proceeded to bang his head on the stone wall and berate himself for being such a coward. Meanwhile, Rarity walked deeper into the eerie mortuary. She would be lying to herself if she denied that it didn’t send shivers up her spine each time she entered into it, but she knew that it had to be done nevertheless. Just past the empty reception desk where she had entered, a straight, narrow, and dark hallway lined with gurneys, some bloodstained and some creaky, led her past several rooms and offices. She knew, unfortunately, that the main coroner’s office itself lay at the very end of that dreary hallway. As she walked slowly down it, not for the first time in her career and certainly not for the last, she couldn’t help but swear to herself that the coroner must have enjoyed the sensation of feeling uneasy, possessed a strong stomach, or was perhaps a little too at ease with the work performed. Then again, she knew it was likely be all of the above. If it was, or wasn’t, she wasn’t sure which alternative was more disturbing. Finally, she reached the end of the hallway and turned to her left. The door that she faced was just like the others in this main hallway and the rest of the building; wooden, and with a fogged glass over it, with the exception that it was pushed open just a hair. Almost as neglected as the building itself were the letters on this particular door. They were now so old and so peeled that they were barely legible anymore, but this was merely an observation of Rarity’s. If she could memorize the streets of Las Pegasus like the back of her hoof, it was certainly no task at all to memorize the rooms and halls of a dreadful coroner’s office, and even if she didn’t know the building and its many offices and rooms by heart, the two shadows that moved around inside of the office could have served as a dead giveaway. She pushed the door open all the way and entered into the small, gloomy room. The two individuals that had been shuffling around and talking stopped mid-conversation and looked up at her. They were on the same side of an examination table upon which Lyra’s remains laid. “Couldn’t wait to see me, now could you Star?” Rarity poked at her old colleague and then looked over at the coroner so as to greet her, “Twilight! Darling, it’s been far too long! How are you?” “I couldn’t agree more!” Coroner Twilight Sparkle replied gleefully, “I stay busy, but circumstances aside, I couldn’t be better. Yourself?” “Very much the same darling, circumstances aside.” Rarity shot a quick glance at the body on top of the examination table. Captain Star cleared his throat and pressed, “Yes, well, all that aside, I think there are more pressing matters.” Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but ever in the mood to get underneath her old partner’s skin and find out the answers to her own questions, Rarity beat her to the draw. “Now Captain,” she chided sarcastically, “Surely you don’t mean for me to come into one of my closest friend’s offices and not catch up? That’s awfully rude! But then again, what exactly would you know about that?” She knew that Star was sensitive to the fact, though he never showed it, that he never made an effort to stay in contact with Rarity after he left the agency despite the fact that he used to be the closest of friends with her. “Can it Rarity,” he was quick to jump to the defensive, “Need I remind you that you’re here on business, and need I remind you that business comes before pleasure?” “No, as a matter of fact, you needn’t ‘remind me’ of anything. However, you can tell me just what it is you’re hiding from me,” she shot back at him. “I’m not hiding-” “No, now you can it!” Rarity slammed her hooves down on the table and leaned directly over the body. “Have you forgotten so quickly how good I am at sniffing out a lie? The way you hushed me back at the scene? And… how there’s something so familiar about this mare’s murder.” She glanced down at the halfway exposed body with a concerned frown on her face and then concluded, “You know it, and I know it. But, I also know that you aren’t telling me everything, and I want the truth.” Star looked sternly at her, but eventually broke the stare by looking down at the ground. He looked as if he wanted to try to profess his innocence once more or try to mount a defense, but all the same, he knew that it would do no good. He sighed and then replied, “Fine. You’re right. I haven’t told you everything, and I’m sorry.” He wiped his nose, “You certainly do still have your eye for detail. Look, it’s nothing important or relevant to you, but if you must know, I shut you up back at the scene because I didn’t want to incite a panic or start a slew of media stories that could grow out of our control.” “Go on.” “Do you remember the Zinnia?” “The… Black Zinnia?” Rarity asked. Star actually thought he saw her gulp, but he wasn’t about to call her out on it. “No, the Yellow Zinnia,” he replied sarcastically, “Yes the Black Zinnia! Who else?” She huffed at him in response, but he continued on, “This young lady’s murder has very striking similarities to the Black Zinnia. Location, brutality, target and all.” He observed Lyra’s exposed remains in silence for a few moments afterwards. “I figured you of all ponies might have picked up on that.” “I knew it!” Rarity’s voice abruptly shattered the subsequent silence, “Ha! I knew it all this time!” Rarity leaned back across the table. “Knew what?” “You need my help with solving the Zinnia murder! The LPPD needs my help with the case of the century! I knew it was only a matter of time.” She wagged the hoof that she wasn’t using to support herself at him. “Now, now, don’t get over excited,” Star used his magic to push her hooves off of the examination table, “I’m asking you to help solve this case, this murder.” He pointed at the body and brought his stern look back upon Rarity. As he slowly paced around the table towards her, he said, “Besides, the Zinnia is an LPPD case, and it’s our case to solve. Need I remind you of that again?” “No, but need I remind you that you won’t solve it without my help?” she replied innocently. Star cringed and shot a look at Rarity. “Oh,” he exhaled and rubbed his forehead, all but defeated and not wanting to argue with her, “Celestia? Why me?” He exhaled again and further tried to defend against Rarity, “Listen, we have no definitive proof that this is the Zinnia Killer, but my colleagues and I agree that there are some resemblances, however striking, between the original Zinnia herself and Miss Heartstrings. We just want to have all possible avenues covered is all, for as far as we know, the Zinnia Killer is walking the streets right now, or, he’s dead or in jail on some other charge.” “So, in other words, you know nothing?” Unsure as to if she was mounting some sort of insult, an apprehensive Star finally replied, “That’s right.” Rarity was quiet for a moment, but she finally turned on her hooves and responded, “Doesn’t surprise me.” She paced around and examined the many test tubes, vials, books, and other miscellaneous medical items that adorned the counter closest to her. Star flushed, but still tried his best to keep himself calm and collected. Today had been stressful enough as it were, and Rarity was nothing short of added stress, but she was desperately needed added stress. “Bottom line Rarity, you’re here to solve this case and this case specifically. If we need your help with anything else, we’ll ask for it.” He saw that Rarity was opening her mouth, no doubt to argue, but he could every bit as swift as she could be. “Now, if you’ll button your beak for just two seconds, I think the coroner has something she’d like to share with you.” Finally, Star turned around and moved to walk back towards the upper corner of the table that he had originally been at, but as he did so, he could swear that out of the corner of his eye he saw Rarity stick her tongue out at him. However flustered Detective Rarity might or might not have been at not getting the last word in with Captain Star though, she eventually made her way over to the opposite side of the examination table. Coroner Sparkle was using her magic to wield a scalpel and poke at an exposed bit of flesh on Lyra’s body, no doubt in order to take a sample, but when the two converged on her she seemed genuinely surprised. She had a way of getting absorbed into her work, perhaps a bit too much, and had no doubt been completely oblivious to the little scuffle that Rarity and Star just partook in. In her strange way though, Twilight knew exactly what it was that she was supposed to do even though, like with the small scuffle, she likely hadn’t heard a single word that had been exchanged between the two. “Well,” Twilight started off lightly and waved her bloody scalpel around in the air, Rarity ducking to avoid it and its splatter-prone contents, “After some thorough examination of the patient, I’ve come to a couple of interesting conclusions that you may find useful in your investigation. For starters, let’s start with the elephant in the room. You can see that’s she been mutilated, and my assistant outlined in his report that he told you it would appear to have been done after death. Is that correct?” “Yes, it is.” “Excellent. Upon closer examination I can confirm that the cutting was not the cause of death and occurred postmortem. Furthermore, there’s no evidence of any stab wounds otherwise. Just evidence of strangulation around the neck and blunt force trauma over most of the upper body.” “I see,” Rarity glanced at the grisly sight, “Any idea what kind of instrument may have been used?” Coroner Sparkle hummed, “It’s hard to tell without actually having anything to compare it to, but if I had to make a guess I would say a large knife. Possibly an axe, but probably not,” she summoned a magnifying glass and examined the severed midsection one more time, “The cuts are too smooth for something like that. In any event, again, if I had to guess, I would say something like a high-grade cutler’s knife.” Rarity scribbled away in her notebook and then asked, “So we have either blunt force trauma or strangulation as the cause of death. Anything useful in regards to that?” “Glad you asked. Look here,” Twilight pointed at a spot just above Lyra’s missing midsection with her scalpel and the trio leaned in for a better look, “See this bruising? And here? And here?” she repeated as she moved the scalpel all the way up Lyra’s body pinpointing several spots and eventually stopping at the face. Rarity hummed and leaned in just a few inches more, “Yes…” she commented after a few moments and then looked at Twilight, “they’re very, very dark. Darker than the rest. Consistent with…” “Broken bones?” Twilight cut her off a bit too cheerfully. She smiled and then resumed, “Correct! I won’t know until I do a more thorough examination, but so far I count approximately,” Twilight began to count numbers under her breath and then finished with, “fifteen different broken bones, including most of the ribs. That isn’t the cause of death though.” “Oh? Interesting,” Rarity commented and pulled her notebook out, “so it looks like our perpetrator is one of brute strength. What is the cause of death then?” “That’s a very likely possibility,” Twilight replied, “because I’m just not seeing any kind of evidence of a blunt instrument being used. Nope. Speaking from experience, these injuries seem consistent with hooves.” Knowing the value of note-taking and being a meticulous note-taker herself, Twilight allowed Rarity a few moments to finish jotting in her notebook. When the private eye finally stopped though, Twilight continued, “Now, on the subject of instruments, and this ties into our cause of death…” she pointed with her scalpel to the bruised lacerations on Lyra’s neck, “this, pretty apparently,” she gave a nerdy chuckle, “your cause of death, was not done by hooves. I can tell you exactly what it was done with though.” She turned around and then, using her magic, procured a leather belt from the bland, steel grey table. She snapped it in the air and then gently laid in across Lyra’s neck; it was at this point Rarity noticed that Captain Star wasn’t wearing his duty belt. “Ah-ha, so then the murder weapon was a belt?” Rarity eagerly jotted down more notes. “Yes, but not just any belt,” Twilight replied as she pulled the leather belt away and placed it back on the table behind her, “Definitely a stallion’s belt. Larger than any mare’s belts I know of. Leather. I would have to say that it would likely be a more well-constructed and expensive brand.” “What makes you say that?” “This belt was pulled so tightly and with such force that anything else like cloth, twine or really cheap leather would have broken.” Rarity stopped writing for a moment. She tried not to look up from her notebook and she tried not to imagine it. The thought itself made her throat hurt. “Anything else?” she said quietly, almost stammering in the beginning. “Now that you mention it, yes. I looked into the earring as outlined in my assistant’s report, and you are correct, they were indeed forcibly removed,” Twilight responded, looking at Lyra’s torn ears, “Judging by the almost linear perforation, I would have to say that they were pulled out with one quick motion.” She was quiet for a few moments before finally concluding, “There is… one more thing as far as that goes.” “Yes?” Rarity asked. "She was still alive when they were pulled out.” Rarity’s pencil screeched to a halt, and she found herself having to swap over to the almost never used eraser side to correct her mistake. She wanted to say something, anything at all, but she only found herself speechless. She wanted to gulp, but she found her throat dry. To think that somepony could be so evil and so brutal to do that to another living being, it was just unthinkable. Thankfully though, Twilight was there to break the silence that overtook the room. “Yes, well,” she cleared her throat and then pointed with her scalpel, “if you look very closely, there is dried blood here, close to the tearing, that further corroborate that theory. I almost missed it myself, but under a concentrated magnifier, it’s there. Now mind you, this is long dried blood, and its shade is consistent with blood that only a living creature could have spilled after enduring such torture.” “Torture doesn’t even being to describe it, I think,” Star commented absentmindedly. He looked away from the body. Holding her hat in place, Rarity flipped her mane. “Anything further?” “Nothing that will prove to be of much use in your investigation, I’m afraid.” Twilight sighed and then put the scalpel down, “There’s no preliminary indicators of sexual assault, but with that, among other factors, I still have a lot of work to do. However, I feel confident in saying that this will be the best I can give you. I’ll be sure to let you know if I find out anything more though.” She gently placed her hoof on Rarity’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. After that though, a stern look made its way across her face and she took on a serious tone. “This young lady died an awful, excruciating, and brutal death at the hands of some… some monster. She was beaten, practically to the point of death, while she had her valuables ripped from her still-tender ears, and then, just as she hoped for a quick death, or, perhaps more realistically, a fast rescue, she was denied her wish and given a slow and torturous death via asphyxiation.” Twilight heaved a sigh and allowed herself to shudder. She might have worked around all of these bodies and had all but grown accustomed to it, but it never made it easier for her to imagine what some of them might have gone through in their final moments. It truly was tragic. “Now I’m no detective,” she concluded quietly, “but for what it’s worth, I think it’s imperative that this individual be caught. Find him Rarity, Star, and bring him before the justice that he deserves. Bring her the solace that she deserves.” With that, Coroner Twilight Sparkle solemnly nodded to the two and walked off to tend to another cadaver at the other end of the room. Afterwards, all was silent as Rarity jotted down some points here and there and compared things now to what she had initially written when she first encountered Lyra’s body. Meanwhile, Captain Star took a few paces towards the examination table that his belt sat upon and used his magic to summon it up and feed it through the loops around his waist. From somewhere that Rarity couldn’t see, perhaps from the corner of the room that he had been blocking, he pulled his duty belt tightly down over his back and then clipped it securely under his stomach. He then placed his hoof on the edge of the examination table, as a relative might when approaching the casket, and promptly exited the room and building without saying a word. Of course, he didn’t need to for Rarity knew perfectly well what she had to do, and he knew that she did. The images and scenarios that had raced through her mind as the coroner described this mare’s death only strengthened her resolve. Like Star had, she placed her hoof on the examination table, and went so far as to place her hoof gently on the side of Lyra’s cheek as if to give her a final goodbye. It was an appropriate farewell, for she knew that after this moment she would never see Lyra again. She bid her friend Twilight Sparkle farewell and followed suit in exiting the room and then the building without saying a word. When Rarity finally made her way back outside and into the lot, she wasn’t surprised to see that Star had already come and gone, and that Spike was the only living entity near her. The dragon had taken a seat on a large stone planter a few paces to the side of the door and true to his word, really seemed to have been studying his notes hard. Rarity smiled at him when she approached him, and he greeted her in his usual way. “Hey Rarity! What did you find out?” “I’m… not quite sure now is the best time, darling,” she smiled at him once more. She knew that he probably didn’t need or want to hear about the grisly details of the murder as they had been told to her inside of the coroner’s office. Besides, he already had the minimum collected from the scene, and Rarity was sure that that would be more than enough to stimulate his interest and growth, and enough to assist her in the event she might need it. “Oh…” Spike looked down at the ground as he kicked his feet back and forth, letting them clack softly on the stone when they came back, “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m starving! Let’s go get some lunch!” He jumped off of the planter and started to stroll towards the street. Rarity smiled weakly as she followed him. It was their usual lunchtime, around noon, and Rarity was hungry, to an extent, but she just wished that for once time hadn’t gone by so swiftly and that she had been anywhere else, anywhere else at all when the time for lunch was nigh. She sighed and hastened her pace to join Spike at his side so that she could scoop him up and place him onto her back. If only you knew darling, if only you knew Rarity thought to herself and allowed a chuckle that was followed by a disgusted gag, how much I hate going to lunch after leaving the coroner's office.